a site representing the kind of 'mainstream opinion' you seem to support would look very much like Daily Mail readers' comments, and they're fucking depressingly full of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, 'I'm all right Jack-isms' and the inane drivel spouted by bigoted right wing dullards.

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Daily Mail readers are mainly working class people. Why insult them and label them, as you have, merely because they may more against excessive immigration than left - wingers are, more concerned than left - wingers are about islamic terrorism in the UK or feel more strongly about those who take advantage of our welfare system?

It is not necessary to demonise a large group of people merely because you disagree with their political views.

No problem. Just a few posts up from yours is one where all rich people are said to be tax cheats. Posts don't get more bigoted than that. Maybe you "missed" it :

How much more extreme and bigoted does it get than generalising about the readers of one of the UK's most popular newspapers as follows :

Daily Mail readers are mainly working class people. Why insult them and label them, as you have, merely because they may more against excessive immigration than left - wingers are, more concerned than left - wingers are about islamic terrorism in the UK or feel more strongly about those who take advantage of our welfare system?

It is not necessary to demonise a large group of people merely because you disagree with their political views.

Now the latest figures, collated by the End Child Poverty coalition through analysis of tax credit data and national trends in worklessness, estimate that child poverty in Manchester and Birmingham stands at 44 per cent and 43 per cent respectively. In the London borough of Tower Hamlets this reaches 53 per cent.

When broken down into constituencies, the figures indicate that Bethnal Green and Bow in London has the highest child poverty rate at 54 per cent, while in Ladywood in Birmingham 53 per cent are living in poverty. Among the 20 parliamentary constituencies with the highest levels of childhood poverty, seven are located in London, three in Birmingham and three in Manchester.

Isn't she well used to cutting corners that would present a risk of serious personal injury. Sounds qualified.

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She's happy to see people kill ourselves. She's fucking purest evil.

I've used the Samaritans. Did so last year. It was fucking bad enough having to stand outside where everyone could see me banging on the door (a bar is opposite the entracne, and the entrance has Samaritans iconography all over so it's obvious what you're doing). I wouldn't use them again (YMMV) after this.

It's the volunteers I feel sorry for. They want to help and don't deserve to be abused by Tory cunts

OMG you couldn't make this shit up.
I think it was Ken Loache who implied that the government had factored suicides into the austerity programme, but he didn't use those words, and without sounding big-headed, I said the same thing a few years ago, and i did use the words 'factored in'

This happened to someone i know last week during the heavy snow. The person doesn't have internet at home, and doesn't have a smartphone, but the jobcentre insist on communicating with them on through an online message system. When they get a message in their inbox, they get a text message which tells them this but not the content of the message. The jobcentre has told them that they need to check their messages promptly or risk a sanction. They got a text message, and walked through the snow to the community centre where they can usually use a computer, but it was shut. They then did a 2 mile route during a snowstorm of the nearest local library, another community project, the council offices - each time finding they were closed - ending up in town where the central library was open but they had to wait in a queue for a computer. When they finally logged on the message was that the jobcentre was closed because of snow and so they didn't need to go to job club that afternoon!

Yeah, shouldn't be any problem with an automated text system, probably doesn't happen because of the slight cost of text messaging, and of course gives more opportunity to sanction people who are already more vulnerable in some way that means they have limited internet access

I am against the welfare cuts. Are you are sure you can live off £57.90? I don’t know what is on the TV.

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A good bit of advice for new users is to have a bit of a read of the threads you're posting to, and get a sense of what's already being talked about, before just posting onto them. It tends to make it look a bit more like you are interested in/care about the community you've just joined.

There's always the idea of getting together a petition. I don't think the government would listen to it even if it got thousands of signs, but it would put pressure on them to think twice before their next cut.

There's always the idea of getting together a petition. I don't think the government would listen to it even if it got thousands of signs, but it would put pressure on them to think twice before their next cut.

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There have been petitions. Hell, I've even signed a few myself. They've all been ignored.

At £57.90 if your microwave breaks then that’s the end of you (£80 a microwave). Or if you need to do a return journey in a taxi for a distance of 30mins (£60 return 30 min taxi), then that’s the end of you. I skimmed through the 131 pages a long thread.

Yes the language used seems, to my untrained eyes, about as serious as it gets, and as its formal the actual sentiment behind it is likely to be even more intense.

I doubt McVey will sack her, and even if she did nothing would change.

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I don't think she'll be sacked, because what she is doing is 100% in furtherance of party policy. She did a "sorry if I got caught and it pissed you off", but there wasn't an ounce of remorse in what she said.

McVey is just a grubby delboy type who buys into all the Tony Robbins self made man bullshit. All she's good for is flogging Get Rich Quick ebooks online or on QVC. Now she's in charge of destroying people's lives because May had to give a Brexiter a position. Politics in Britain is a joke.

Even so, she won't be hearing the truth about life on benefits. She'll only hear what the civil service tells her. For this report to have made it this far shows just how much of a fucking catastrfuck Universal Credit is. But, again, even so, the case studies she will hear about, or go to visit, will be the selected few; the minority of probably relatively easy cases where people aren't drowing in debt or slowly starving in their wheelchairs.

Someone on FB in a benefits group I'm part of posted a link to a clip of Anna Soubry on the 'Last Leg'. Therein she talks about how she's disgusted with the whole capita/atos process. The usual blah blah blah from well meaning Tories.

I say well meaning, because in truth it just wound me up. All it did was a) allow her to score some kudos with the audience and self aggrandize, and b) promote the deserving/undeserving poor rhetoric that, crucially, was ignored and unchallenged.

Without addressing the structural and ideological basis her claims that she's going to talk to Esther McVey and bring up how disgusting she finds it is meaningless. Of course she's going to do nothing of the kind.

This is the same Esther McVey who regards the welfare state as a car salesman regards the latest (insert brand or model) vehicle on the forecourt.

The same McVey who's in a relationship with Phillip fucking Davies of all people. Because of course they are!

Soubry's voting record speaks for itself; she voted against any support for people and any rise for claimants, even in line with inflation.

I once had it from the horses mouth when they `cut me off`(no housing benefit or JSA) for being naughty.

She was the manager of Llandrindod Wells Job Centre in mid Wales. She was flabbergasted that I was being persecuted in this way(unheard of at the time ... about 2004) for educating the unemployed about A4E and there connections with the ongoing Palestinian genocide as well as pointing out the obvious slavery elements of work for your welfare.

When I asked her about the Job Centre staff and what is it exactly that they are employed to do, whilst pointing out that I had seen many people desperate for help given disinformation by staff, she said

"They are employed to prevent people getting benefits they are entitled to"